


By The Light Of The Moon

by MittenWraith



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, the rambling product of a fever dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 12:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8328061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MittenWraith/pseuds/MittenWraith
Summary: So I’m still sick. I took a bunch of cold medicine last night so I’d be able to lie down and still breathe, and hooboy it led to some strange dreams. There was this one where I was me at first, but then I wasn’t me… just sort of standing outside watching this dream happen, and what had started out as me ended up being played by Dean Winchester… so I guess the easiest way to relate the dream is by recounting it like it was a fic, since it felt exactly like watching a short film of a fanfic but with awesome special effects.
Basically I’m using it as an excuse to indulge in a bit of purple prose, Coleridge style.





	

Dean stood in a white room. Well, not a room exactly. He couldn’t make out any walls, or doors, or a ceiling; just an endless blank space. He wasn’t alone, though, he knew that much. Cas was nearby, even if Dean couldn’t see him through the blinding emptiness.

“Hold out your hands,” a voice said, or maybe didn’t say. Dean couldn’t tell what was inside his head or really happening in this strange void. Whatever the case, he did as he was told.

A heavy weight landed in his outstretched palms, and the moment it touched his skin he could see it. He held a spherical rock about the size of the sugar pumpkin his mom had bought at the farmer’s market the other day, and then carved up to make a pie. It had made one delicious pie, but this rock felt heavy, so much heavier than the pumpkin, like he held the weight of worlds compressed into its rough and pitted surface.

He rolled it in his hands, looking at it from all sides, fascinated because it seemed to be a portable replica of the moon down to every last crater. In his line of work, he’d spent plenty of time staring up at the real moon, taking a break from digging a grave, waiting on all-nighter stakeouts for some monster or other to show up so Dean could put it out of everyone’s misery, and camping out in the car when they couldn’t afford a motel room, with the only entertainment on offer the night sky stretched out above them. Yeah, Dean recognized the moon when he held it in his hands.

“Be careful with her,” Cas said suddenly from behind his shoulder, and Dean startled. The moon slipped from his fingers and he watched it fall, helpless to stop it.

It hit the ground beneath his feet, ground that he hadn’t been able to see before, and shattered into millions of pieces that flew out in all directions. No, not shards of rock, but butterflies with inky black and blue wings, and everywhere they landed became a field of grass dotted with flowers of every description. He stood there as the world filled in around him, watching life unfurl before his eyes in the formless void until it stretched out beyond the newly-created horizon.

As he turned to take it all in, he expected to see Castiel standing behind him. Dean knew he was there with absolute certainty, but he still couldn’t see him. Then he remembered, Cas had told him to be careful, and what had he done? He’d already ruined everything, destroyed that precious object he’d been entrusted to hold. Sure this creation that resulted was beautiful, but at what cost? What had he destroyed to make this happen?

“It’s okay, Dean. You can pick her up again,” Cas’s voice echoed all around him. He still felt close and warm, but just out of reach.

Dean looked down at his feet, and nestled in the grass was the moon, exactly as it had been before he’d dropped her. Slowly he bent to pick her up again, looking out the corners of his eyes trying to catch a glimpse of Castiel. Still, the only motion he caught was the flitting of the butterflies and the tall grass swaying in a gentle breeze, leaving him with a strange sense of loneliness.

The moon felt heavier now, as if that one act of creation had merely primed the pump for more. The first time it had been an accident, but holding this huge weight became too much of a temptation. This time, he held his hands high above his head and let her fall to the ground.

Swarms of bees erupted from the impact crater and Dean let out a very manly squeaking noise before stumbling away from the flood of new life exploding all around him. Hands caught his shoulders and held him upright, but still he couldn’t see Castiel.

“That’s right. Dean,” Cas’s voice said gently in his ear, and Dean was reassured that he hadn’t made the wrong choice, impulsively smashing the moon he’d been entrusted with.

The bees darted off to fields of blossoming trees now appearing in the distance, growing heavy with fruits of every variety as Dean watched. Blink. A grove of cherries materialized from nothingness. Blink. An apple orchard. Blink. Bushels of plums, pears, peaches, almonds, an entire year’s harvest in a matter of seconds.

Again he looked around for Cas, and despite feeling Cas’s hands still resting on his shoulders, he was still hidden in shadow. Dean needed to do something about that, so he quickly bent to pick up the moon once again. This time as he scooped her up off the ground he strained under her weight, so full of creation now that he wondered how she hadn’t burst apart from just the touch of his hands. He could feel a strange anticipation buzzing through him as he held her, as if he’d plugged himself into the entire universe’s power grid for the few seconds he’d dared to hold on to it. He braced himself and used the strength of his entire body to hurl her up from the ground and catapult her into the air.

Birds this time, millions of them, or maybe billions of them, exploded into the sky, painting the clouds, the sun sinking toward the horizon, a distant ocean crashing against the shore where gulls and sandpipers met the lapping waves on endless beaches; mountains pressing up through the crust of the earth and stretching up to meet the heavens where condors soared above surveying the snow-capped peaks; hills gently rising and valleys slowly sinking as the air erupted into a rapidly diminishing cacophony of joyous song rolling across the land.

Dean could only stand and watch, now feeling Castiel’s presence behind him as a solid thing but too afraid to look now and be proven wrong. The sun was setting now in this new sky he’d made, dipping behind the mountaintops and urging him to pick up the moon one last time.

He could barely lift her now, but somehow he found the strength to pry her off the ground once more. Again she shattered against the earth, releasing dark clouds of bats and a bright blur of fireflies. They raced off into the growing darkness to strew themselves across the night sky, revealing new stars and galaxies between every beat of their wings. It still wasn’t right, though. There was still something missing. The moon still lay dark and cold on the ground at his feet, and Dean couldn’t summon the strength to lift her again.

Castiel finally stepped around him, looking so much like the night sky himself that Dean almost didn’t recognize him, at least not with his eyes. Dean didn’t need sight to know Castiel.

Cas stood facing him, the moon half buried in the earth between their feet, and reached out to join hands with Dean. Together they bent down to lift her up again, but this time she sent a shock of lightning through both of them, blinding Dean with a wash of color, every color imaginable, and when he blinked his eyes open he could finally see Cas, all of Cas, in a radiant spectrum of impossible light.

Castiel smiled, as if he were seeing the same in Dean, as if he’d been as blind as Dean had been until that moment. With a nod, they raised up the moon and flung her high into the sky, and this time she didn’t fall back to earth.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr (i'm [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com)), where I'm not usually quite so rhapsodic... :P


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